of chicken.” They both became aware of the footman who stood by the door like a wax figure, wearing his shiny white wig and the trimmed livery of the Elector, and they lowered their voices.
When Josefa was called again, Mozart stationed himself by the crack of the door and looked over the brilliantly lit room filled with people seated on gilded chairs. The sisters stood as close together as their great skirts allowed. The candlelight shining through the few loose strands of powder-dusted hair made those tendrils look like white fire. At the clavier he could also see their father, the copyist Weber, bobbing up and down as he accompanied them in an Italian love duet. Their voices rose higher and higher. Aloysia moved her tiny hands; Josefa clutched her closed fan tightly. One voice was brighter and took the highest notes, which rang small and pure over the heads of the audience. Aloysia. Aloysia, Aloysia, the mother had called her, lovingly, chiding. He recalled the warmth and laughter of the large family.
He was the last to play.
He heard his name murmured, and then the sound of his heeled shoes on the floor. There were candles everywhere, and the smell of perfumed clothing and hair powder, and under it always the stink of perspiration. How accustomed he was to this walk, having entered such palace rooms all over Europe when he was so small he had to be lifted to the chair before the keyboard to play, legs clad in white silk stockings dangling.
They were looking at him now as they had then, quieter than they had been for the Weber sisters. Some remembered who he was, perhaps. And there in the center, in two high-back armchairs cushioned in red velvet, were the somber Elector of Mannheim, Carl Theodor, with his long, middle-aged face heavy from years of good eating, and his wife, Electress Maria Elizabeth, leaning her head on her hand slightly so as not to disturb her high cascade of powdered hair. Hand over his heart, he bowed. The majordomo stared straight ahead of him. “Herr Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart from Salzburg,” he intoned.
Mozart bowed again. “Si son Excellence daigne le permettre!” If his Excellence deigns to permit it! “Graciously begging your indulgence, I am most honored to present you with my new composition, a sonata in four movements in C major.”
A few more who had been speaking turned to gaze curiously at him. He seated himself at the clavier keyboard, gazing at the familiar length of black naturals and the white accidentals. Candles glittered in the wood sconces carved with roses. What was the instrument like? You never knew until you tried it; then, if keys stuck, or the action was slow, it seemed like your fault. Fridolin Weber’s playing had been stiff, and he had not been able to judge.
He rubbed his hands to warm them, then began.
Under his hands the instrument was responsive, and during the andante he could feel the two sisters watching him from the crack in the door. Someone was talking; he bit his lip and finished the last movement a little more quickly than he would have liked, then stood, bowing.
Elector Carl Theodor and his wife beckoned to him, and at once he went forward, kissing their perfumed, limp hands in turn. “Has it been truly fifteen years since you were here, Mozart?” the Elector said. “I recall you as a child with your ceremonial sword and your elegant court dress, hardly to my wife’s knee! Don’t you recall the little fellow, my dear?”
From a chair near them the Elector’s daughter stammered, “On ne peut pas jouer mieux!” No one is able to play better. She then added, “You told me of him, Papa!” Mozart smiled at her good nature, and kissed her freckled hand.
“Do you play yourself, my lady?”
“ Un peu. Perhaps if you were remaining a time in Mannheim, you could give me lessons.”
That will get me closer to an appointment, he thought, and kissed her hand again between the jeweled rings. “That would be a great honor, Gracious Princess!” Then the majordomo pressed a small velvet bag in his hands, and he bowed again, hand to his heart.
Just as a great silver tray of cakes was carried into the room he was shown out, his mind filled with the possibility of the lessons and the certainty of moving closer to a position. Still deep in thought, he saw the Weber sisters and their father had not yet left but